It’s the Pound the Gay Ass of the Missing Player game! (Balisar had taught the group about the fine works of Chuck Tingle prior to the beginning of the recording. ) Having defeated the wererats, the group takes a short rest to recover. And read more Chuck Tingle titles.

DM: As you’ve rested, the mist is beginning to pull back. It’s starting to settle and pull away.
Elkus: “Well, that’s a good sign, I should say.”
Balisar: “Perhaps those fungus things that were producing it have consolidated further in. Well, let us continue deeper in. We’re not done exploring by a long shot, and I still have life left in me!”
Valan: More pounding to do…
Elkus: “Well said, my friend, let us go.”

Someone devours a corpse, leading to arguments as to whether that causes wereratism. Eventually the DM is consulted.

DM: This is a different kind of wereratism. It’s where your stomach turns into wererats.
Valan: “What’d he order?!” “The special.”
Elkus: “That’s what I ordered!”
DM: Footsteps, just very mushy-sounding footsteps, walking pretty quickly away from you. The mist seems to be going in the direction of the sound.

Believing themselves to be on the right track, the group advances in a cautious formation. But with purpose! The DM calls for Perception checks, pointlessly since Aurianna never fails.

DM: You look off to the side as you’re walking and notice some very strange puddles, some oily pools. You didn’t notice this before. Seems like the others have rushed past it. …how do you do tracking in this system? Give me a Survival check.
Elkus: Well crap. But, because I’m a bard, I get half my proficiency.
Balisar: Natural 1.
Elkus: So back the way we came – huh. Also a natural 1.
Balisar: An argument erupts!
Elkus: And the two faces of the party decide it’s doubled back on us.
Balisar: It’s doubled back on us!
Elkus: Quick, jab your torch in there and see what happens!
DM: You just notice these oily patches as you begin to enter this next room, but the people definitely went past them.

The next room is full of oily pools, which Elkus realizes is too close to Dark Souls 2 for comfort.

DM: You’ll see. You’re gonna wish it was those.
Valan: We’ll take a shiny coin, that is good for nothing else, and toss it in the pool.
DM: You’re gonna toss it in the pool?
Valan: No. Are there any bones in the room?
DM: No, it’s very clean.
Valan: Oh. They leave nothing behind.

The group begins checking its inventory for means to test the pools for flammability. This takes a while.

Valan: Well, I have the ability to make fire…
DM: (laughing) I just… Poof! “Fire. Good. I make.” Druids don’t know how to make fire..
Valan: Doesn’t the – no, you don’t spit fire.
DM: They don’t even know how to fight it. “Fire bad!”
Valan: “If all else fails, use fire.”

They test a small pool, but it extinguishes the fire as their small brand sinks in. Balisar speculates that it’s a natural secretion.

Balisar: “Do you know of anything in nature that could produce such a creature – err, goo?”
Valan: (cracking up)
Balisar: Wow. Do you know anything in nature that could be pounded in the butt by its own butt?
Valan: Yes, a gay triceratops.
Elkus: “Perhaps these are big pores!”
Balisar: “That’s a disgusting thought indeed.”
DM: I’m trying to figure out how to answer this properly… you fear that these could be a form of ooze or something from it.

Balisar believes these could be grey oozes, nasty creature that eat metal. They immediately start trying to find away around this room, and the DM calls for checks.

Elkus: Survival does not want to succeed, ever.
Balisar: “Let’s DRINK it away!”
Valan: But the ooze was poison!
Balisar: But the poison was poison! Who knew?
Tyr: Survival, natural 20—
Elkus: WHO ARE YOU?!

Tyr finds a path through the pools that might avoid the oozes if they are careful. The group rolls Stealth to creep past.

DM: You slowly make your way through. Actually, at a fairly brisk place, you’re able to make your way through.
Tyr: Hooray!
Valan: They heard that!

A wall of mist protects the far side of the room, and with all caution they apply their protective gear and masks.

Elkus: Here, let me wet them… chloroform? Crap?
Valan: Ohh, captive audience.
Balisar: ‘The mask didn’t work!’ ‘Yes they did.’
Elkus: (maniacal laughter)
Balisar: You’re wearing one too.
Elkus: Awww.
DM: Before you something truly horribly, something you’ve never seen before. Right ahead of you is what could only be described as a gibbering mound of red and mouths and teeth. This monster sits in the center of the room. A few of the mushroom creatures didn’t make it past it and are being slowly gnawed on.

Balisar confidently declares he has this, and hurls several Super Mario fireballs at the creature. This fails to work, but they still plan to kill it to save others from its horror.

DM: As you get closer you hear gibbering, almost every mouth seems to make its own noise.
Balisar: It’s like some sort of… gibbering mouther.
DM: (a look of incomprehensible disgust)
Balisar: (cracking up)
DM: Because I described it so well!
Balisar: It’s like some sort of… death knight, I don’t know.

The creature hasn’t noticed them, so they aggressively take their surprise round! Tyr promptly charges in and crits!

Tyr: 35 damage.
DM: Sweet Jesus!
Valan: And the gibbering mouther goes down.
DM: No, it is not dead…

Balisar throws a Poison Spray at it, and the creature proves neither immune to poison nor able to make its Con save. He rolls his damage!

Balisar: 12.
DM: Sweet Jesus!
Valan: Down goes the gibbering mouther—
DM: IT’S NOT DEAD!
Tyr: Did we just slaughter this thing in a single round?
All: No!
DM: You might, though, at this rate!

Aurianna lands Sacred Flame on it, and… well, yes, they slaughter it in one round. Out of the walls pour cockatrices, now that the mouther is dead! The group panics at the thought of turning to stone as initiative is rolled, but the DM assures then that petrification has only a 24-hour duration in 5E. Up against six cockatrices, Aurianna is first to act. She casts Bless.

Balisar: It’s only three creatures, Aurianna, you have to pick who gets it.
Aurianna: Well you don’t get it, then. It’s Tyr, Valan, and Elkus.

Silence.

DM: Look at his face fall! He just looks so – she’s all, you don’t get it, and he’s just--!
Balisar: I don’t need it, really, I’m not making attack rolls.
DM: You still look so hurt!

Tyr, up next, has to make his Con save against the petrification. He passes handily, as a Blessed barbarian.

Elkus: I’m gonna fail, because I don’t have Con as a save. I have DEX and CHARISMA…
Balisar: Dude, it’s still a 50% chance.
Elkus: I SAID, “DEX AND CHARISMA”!
Balisar: I SAID A 50% CHANCE!

The next one fails to stone Valan. Elkus comes up next.

Elkus: Schwing! “SUNBLADE!”

With many a cry of “SUNBLADE!”, Elkus dices a cockatrice for six damage. Balisar begins speculating that Elkus is under mental control.

Valan: I will follow, inspired by his SUNBLADE!
Elkus: Ha HA!
Valan: Ha HA!
DM: Did you go against a weakened target or a fresh one?
Valan: I was following Elkus in, inspired by his GAY BLADE!
Aurianna: Ha HA!
Valan: Hoo hoo, possible crit!
Elkus: It IS a crit.
Balisar: How little you remember.
Valan: I’ve got Pandemic in my brain, still, it’s SCOURED me!
DM: Hold on, you appear to be out of cards. YOU LOSE!

The players lapse into horrified flashbacks. Elkus takes a hit, but laughs off the save, while another misses Balisar, who desperately Chromatic Orbs the one who approached him. A screaming goat interrupts the proceedings.

Elkus: That sounds like a billionaire triceratops, yeah… and he’s craving something.
Aurianna: Gay ass?
Elkus: Yeah!

Aurianna takes a hit and briefly panics over whether or not she failed… foolishly ignoring the DC of the check as far below her base roll. She uses her reaction for Hellish Rebuke, then Channels Divinity.

Aurianna: I can do 15 points of damage – I mean 15 points of healing…
Elkus: “OWWWW! OWWWWWWW!”
DM: Elkus’s engines are damaged!

The cockatrices continue to cause minor damage as the players return fire. Elkus is the first one to take out a foe.

Valan: It’s about to get its ass pounded by…
Balisar: Pounded in the butt by a monk. “Horny Half-Orc Monks Pounded Me In the Butt.” “Horny Half-Orc Monks Gently Tapped My Prostrate.”
Valan: And give me a card. I rolled a 1 on damage dice AND the next attack.
Balisar: “Not the Weak Point.” Your enemy’s armor takes 1d6 points of damage, or however you want to interpret that. You take 1d6 points of damage and cannot use that attack for 1d3 rounds.
DM: No! You can’t use your kick!?
Tyr: You stubbed your toe, good job.
DM: It goes in for the person who shot an acid ball at his face. Roll your Con.
Valan: One of you WILL turn to st—
Balisar: (rolls)
Valan: --yeah.
DM: You take 5 points of damage, but where he plucked, you see stone begin to envelop you. Slowly. You’ll get another chance to save next round.

Balisar blows his next save, and turns to stone, gasping out a farewell! Elkus has Arcana, fortunately, and rolls well enough to know the duration is only 24 hours.

Elkus: I swear on SUNBLADE’s honor, that he will not be stone forever!
DM: It doesn’t mention anything about breaking the statue, the consequences of that, but I would refrain from allowing the statue to topple over and shatter.
Elkus: I’m also going to refrain, I didn’t actually say that about the Sunblade, I’m not going crazy.
Balisar: Let’s see here. My weight increase by a factor of 10, I cease aging…

Aurianna fails her save as well, leaving the DM baffled that the players are actually failing saves. This never happens! Tyr kills one with 12 damage, and Elkus is up.

Elkus: SUNBLADE!
Valan: Ha! Almost enough to bring a smile to Valan’s face. Almost.

Valan takes out a weakened one, leaving two up. They accomplish nothing. Tyr and Elkus wade into the fray once more, and then Valan is up!

Valan: I missed.
Elkus: Remember, you got a d4 you can add, and a d6 you can add.
DM: Start with the d4.
Valan: The d6 is the one that doesn’t refresh… so 11, plus…
DM: You rolled an 11?
Valan: With the regular attack bonus, yes—
DM: You hit!
Valan: Well, I rolled a 12!

Elkus finally SUNBLADEs the last one, leaving two petrified allies on the field.

Valan: Wait, what permission is the dragonborn in?
DM: “My foot!”
Elkus: Like the old Western getting shot in the stomach.

Valan hears a small rumbling from the ceiling – and then suddenly more!

DM: “Whoa! Whoops! I found another hole!” There seems to be a foot sticking through.
Valan: A foot.
Elkus: “Ho there!”
Valan: Hello, foot.
DM: Seems to be a weak spot on the ceiling up there. “Oh! Oh hey! Aren’t you the ones who went in the hole?!”
Elkus: “Yes, that is us!”
DM: “You guys okay?”
Aurianna: No.
DM: “Wasn’t there like five of you? Where’d you find those cool statues?!”

The NPCs offer to help the group out, hurling down a rope to haul the statues out of the pit for 24 hours. They chat for a bit as the PCs explain much of what they’ve already discovered and already done.

Elkus: “Well, I’m going to take a nap!” Hang my coat up on Balisar’s hand.
DM: Oh by the way, Balisar, you see and feel everything happening around you.
Balisar: IT SPECIFICALLY SAYS I DO NOT.
DM: All right, I just erased the rules and say you see and feel everything… You wake up in a fetal position, being held by a bear.
Balisar: “Huh.”
Valan: “I like him better as a statue.”
Elkus: “No, no, we must wait for him to come back. His knowledge is invaluable, and his spells are kinda nice too.”
Balisar: (flipping them off)
Elkus: “I don’t remember his finger being like that…”
Valan: “The spell is breaking.”
Balisar: I can change, but only when you’re not looking.
Elkus: Like angel statues.
Valan: Oh god. I’m not sleeping tonight.
Balisar: Good. You don’t want to sleep tonight, imagine the dreams you’ll have. As Valan’s own ass flutters merrily in front of him.
DM: Valan’s like, “Don’t rape me, ass! Don’t rape me!”
Valan: By Chuck Tingle.
Balisar: I don’t think “Don’t rape me, ass, don’t rape me” has the panache of his other titles.
Elkus: My Billionaire Triceratops Craves Gay Ass.

I should mention that Tyr got called away briefly, which is why the conversation has gone down this path and stays there for quite some time. The night passes, with Elkus pondering how to put this to song.

Balisar: “When danger reared its ugly head, he turned to stone from tail to head!”
Elkus: I want you to burst from the stone like you’re a Gargoyle.
Balisar: Sorry, I burst from the stone like I’m Gargamel. “SMUUUUUURFS! …I don’t know why I said that.”

The DM counts this petrification as a rest for the sake of simplicity. Balisar pulls up a weird trance version of the Smurfs song, leading Aurianna to vow to sleep on the couch and Valan to propose a modified version of Rule 34: if it exists, there is trance of it. At last the two statues stop being statues.

DM: You find yourself on the surface as you break free, the cockatrices gone. You find yourself in a tent someone had managed to pull over you.
Balisar: My staff strikes the side, knocking it over!
Valan: There goes the tent.
DM: You all watch as the tent collapses.
Elkus: Soothing music plays. Stops for a bit, then continues.
Balisar: Convinced I’m being sucked into the horrible maws of death, I continue struggling. Someone tell me otherwise.

Elkus talks Balisar down, but before they can get down into properly fighting over whose fault it was, the earth rumbles and the hole opens up more dramatically. They peer down!

DM: You look towards, you can clearly see it now, the whole room opens up. The wall to the side where the orange mist was is blown out. The orange mist is now almost completely gone. Inside, you see the remains of a mushroom-filled room. In the center is a huge creature. It’s not facing you, it’s facing further in. It’s shaking off the mist. The last of the mushroom creatures now walked away. The huge beast, four legs, three tentacles, the eyes of the creature appear to be on the tentacles itself, you can barely make out the back of its head – stomps about a moment, letting off a deep, guttural roar.
Balisar: “Strike it down from range!”
DM: You hear a voice in your head. Looking around, it seems everyone hears it. “FINALLY! Your days are numbered!”
Balisar: “Get it!”
DM: “Your mushrooms will not stop me any longer!”
Balisar: “Strike it!”
DM: “I will kill you!”
Balisar: “Why aren’t we attacking?!”
Elkus: “I’m trying!”
DM: It proceeds further in, slowly stalking something. Heading further into the chamber.

The DM describes Balisar shattering as he descends the rope for no reason, then penalizes every single one of his attribute rolls for his new character. Elkus get fancies.

Elkus: I do a handstand, then dive into the hole, grabbing the rope at the last minute.
DM: You do a stylish, awesome jump.
Elkus: Toss in a sunblade at the end. “SUNBLADE, go!”
Balisar: (staring)
Elkus: I’m kidding!

This discussion goes on a strange tangent.

Elkus: “Pull my finger.”
Balisar: “Well, I guess it always pays to follow the quest!”
Elkus: “Hold Person.”

Heading in, they find a very ornate structure much like the upper floor. In the center of the room, the complete focal point of the city and all local energy points to a pyramid with an egg on its top! A winged serpent protects the egg.

Valan: It gets pounded!
DM: The loud voice again. “I will kill you and consume the egg, and its power will be mine!”
Elkus: I crave it!
Balisar: “Get it!”
Valan: (helplessly snickering at Elkus’s comment)
Balisar: It’s like a teakettle gone horribly wrong.
DM: Roll your initiatives!

Initiative is delayed because Valan just can’t stop laughing at Chuck Tingle titles, which up till now he hadn’t truly believed. They get it out at last!

DM: “You must aid me. I had trapped him in the mushrooms all this time because I knew I was not strong enough to defeat him myself. With your aid, we can destroy him.”
Balisar: ‘Don’t worry! We’ll make sure Bowser doesn’t capture the Mushroom Kingdom!’

An unusually long silence.

Aurianna: That wasn’t in character, was it?
Valan: It sounded like it.
DM: I’m closing the book.
Elkus: Is that what this based off of?!
DM: No, I just hated that he made the comparison.

The serpent tosses out a Bless, and then Elkus unleashes a high-slot Dissonant Whispers at the monster. It fails its save, taking 20 damage and being forced to run, while Elkus applies Bardic Inspiration to Tyr.

Elkus: And next round, SUNBLADE!
Balisar: “It’s in his mind!”
Elkus: It isn’t.
Balisar: ‘It’s dominated yoooou!’
Elkus: Hold Person.

Aurianna casts Bless, and then Valan misses with his attack. Tyr rages, while Elkus lapses into a weird Being John Malkovich delusion where everyone says ‘Sunblade’. Balisar casts Phantasmal Force, creating an illusion of an energy creature emerging from the egg to battle him and deal 5 points of psychic damage. The serpent creature bites the monster, which wastes its action attacking the phantasm. Its tentacles lash out at the party, but Valan dodges the grapple.

Elkus: Sching! SUNBLADE!
Valan: You’re Elkus… carve an S into everyone with the Sunblade.
Balisar: If you did a reverse sigma it could be an E.

Elkus misses with a 13, remembers his Bless, and hits it with a 14. The party continues to unload into the beast, with Valan using his monk ability to force a Dex save.

DM: It falls.
Valan: I figured that big, it’s not going to have a good Dex save.
Balisar: You swept the leg.
Valan: That’s why I got kicked out of the monastery, I got disqualified too many times…

Tyr unloads 18 damage into the think, while the DM bemoans the illusory tank. The creature is unable to disbelieve the phantasm, while the PCs keep beating the crap out of it.

DM: Your stick slams into him. I’m assuming you can’t do less than 2 damage.
Valan: Yes, in fact, I’ve done 5.
DM: It slams into him, it slumps. The last psionic scream seems to go out. And it falls to the ground.
Balisar: I do like the idea that none of you guys have the slightest idea of what it was doing up there either.
Elkus: Whatever.

The DM reveals that the creature, an otyugh, had a language all of its own, which he doesn’t understand at all…

DM: “Your valiant effort to defeat this creature has spared the life of this. It was my mission to ensure its safety for all time.”
Balisar: Wait wait, here’s the twist. “The life of this EVIL RED DRAGON!” Poof! “I AM BOOORN!”
Tyr: You all die, game over.
DM: “I saw if I was to fight this creature on my own, I would fail. I was forced to sacrifice the people above by unleashing those mushrooms upon him to keep him asleep for all these years. You have saved… me, and thus undone what I have caused. But it seems the land has moved again, for I am not where I was.”

The serpent tells them that gods placed six eggs on the land to sleep for 2000 years, and that time is nearly up. It has no idea what is in the egg, though. Balisar suggests that the human settlement could establish a fortress to protect the egg, though the serpent feels the threat has passed. They still elect to go see about establishing a settlement here, as well as consulting with the birdmen.

DM: “Before you go, know my name.”
Balisar: ‘Butts. Seymour Butts.’ We take this story back to town, they don’t believe us. ‘Yeah sure, was his friend Hugh Jass there?’
Elkus: ‘Before you leave, allow me to spray you with my welcoming juice.’ ‘Why does it smell like rum?!’

The creature’s name is Etalpalli, and the serpent tells them the people of the land may recognize it. Elkus completes the first tier of his Sunblade and now can change the scope. As they exit, they begin their climb out of these ruins.

DM: “They destroyed the beast! Hooray!”
Elkus: HIGH-FIVE!
Balisar: Don’t high-five me with your Sunblade!

The group unlocks fast-travel, in the form of a much-improved trail leading between these ruins and the main town. The DM awards experience, and treasure, but unfortunately relies on the wrong book for the latter.

DM: You guys receive… three beholders, and they immediately attack you. Good luck.

With our PCs now corpses or on their way back to town, either or, the game ends on this note!